Since its birth at the end of the 19th century tango has been developing continuously. What began as a dance of the poor in Buenos Aires quickly conquered high society and spread itself worldwide. The cliché wants it that tango is linked with passion and sensuality. However, nowadays, many still associate ‘tango’ with nothing else but the exaggerated head movements and staccato style of its ball-room version. Which in fact originated as a purified European version of the so perceived vulgar and voluptuous original.
From the ‘golden era’ in the forties of the 20th century until the present, developments in tango music invoked changes in the dance. In the past, improvisation mainly meant combining fixed figures in different ways. Nowadays, dancers are challenged to improvise each and every single step.
After the orquestas típicas of Juan D’Arienzo, Rodolfo Biagi, Carlos Di Sarli and Osvaldo Pugliese with their multi-layered music (to name some of the most famous), Astor Piazzolla caused a revolution in the seventies. His tango deals with the rhythm and sphere of modern urban life and is characterized by the contrast between utter reticence and extreme exuberance, all this amplified by frequent tempo changes. The so-called tango electrónico, latest branch of the tango music tree is eagerly finding its own place and form during the last decade. It is distinguished by the combination of electronic instruments and tango samples and a relaxed atmosphere and thus can easily be linked up with mainstream music (among others Gotan Project, Bajofondo, Tanghetto and Narcotango).
All this has led to changes in the dance. In general, the lead became less and less enforced, the follow more active and independent. The search for new possibilities to express emotions the music was provoking caused Gustavo Naveira’s and Fabian Salas’ revolutionary insight in the basic structure of the dance. Although tango is a complex dance, the basic elements are simple and surveyable: there are only three different possible steps, two turning directions and two ‘foot systems’. And in its turn this insight created the possibility to generate an enormous movement vocabulary.
For tango dancers in our time the possibilities generated by both tradition and recent developments are so rich and so enriching:
